The IRI node never reaches full sync, latestSolidSubtangleMilestoneIndex never catches up to latestMilestoneIndex latestSolidSubtangleMilestoneIndex comes close to latestMilestoneIndex but then stops updating

for example from getNodeInfo:latestMilestoneIndex: 297856 and latestSolidSubtangleMilestoneIndex: 297779

The code that updates latestSolidSubtangleMilestoneIndex is in Milestone,java

Indeed the node became synced (latestMilestoneIndex: 301384 = latestSolidSubtangleMilestoneIndex: 301384) in few minutes, the corresponding transaction is YQMSDWGHWLCALRZQVPACMBX9KQ9VVXUGK9FTYEKJVNGGWKP9BYYBRDVYEKV9NEHHMTPMSMAFFOTP99999

However this milestone transaction YQMSDWGHWLCALRZQVPACMBX9KQ9VVXUGK9FTYEKJVNGGWKP9BYYBRDVYEKV9NEHHMTPMSMAFFOTP99999 was already 5 hours old according to the IOTA explorer https://iotasear.ch/ and after waiting two more hours nothing has changed in my node, it still has the same latestMilestoneIndex: 301384 = latestSolidSubtangleMilestoneIndex: 301384

The current milestone shown in https://iotasear.ch/ is 301562 JD9BPZIJAFARZD9VNAUJQNIQYZCLRVFXNAQDZZAHLFZBVJIPIWUTTWOWN9ALCBVLGBPNKOMJCPIWA9999

I requested in the Nodesharing forum and got a couple more neighbors.The node synced quickly after that , so finally is now ready for further testing and development.Any one interested in building a real project let me now !Cheers